This report seeks to inform a broad audience about permafrost and communicate to decision-makers and the general public the implications of changing permafrost in a warming climate. It defines basic terminology and describes fundamental physical and biological processes that shape the permafrost landscape using the best scientific information available from published literature. The report discusses the impacts of a changing climate on ecosystems and human infrastructure in regions with significant presence of permafrost, as well as the impacts of thawing permafrost on global climate. Graphics, illustrations and photographs help explain complicated concepts and ideas in a way that is easily understood and visualized by a non-scientific audience.

This report builds upon other reports written in recent years. These reports are very technical in nature and target a limited, scientific audience rather than a broader group of decision-makers and the general public. The 2011 executive summary of the Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic assessment report from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme focused on how climate change influences the Arctic cryosphere,rather than the other way around, and did not include all areas with permafrost, particularly alpine regions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Fourth Assessment Report dealt with the subject
of permafrost in a highly scientific fashion under Working Group I in Chapter 4. In 2007, UNEP produced a volume entitled Global Outlook on Snow and Ice, where one chapter included an overview of permafrost. Again in 2008, in the UNEP Yearbook of our Changing Environment, UNEP devoted a chapter to methane emissions, but did not focus on permafrost. This current report fills a gap by providing a concise, highlyreadable and fully up-to-date description of permafrost and future social, economic and environmental impacts of changing permafrost in a warming climate.